JAPAN’S MILLIONS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 19 January 1926, Page 11

JAPAN’S MILLIONS.

. RAPIDLY INCREASES. 740,000 LAST YEAR. POPULATION PROBLEMS. TOKIO, Nov. 20. The population of Japan increased during the year 1924 by / 40,000, according to the statistics appearing m the Official Gazette, an increase that has re-started a discussion m the Japanese press of the surplus popu arion problem. According to the officiu. figures, the natural rate of increase here is 12.57 per 1000, while the average rate in Europe is 10.7 per 1000. The birth rate is very much higher, as the death rate per thousam.

Japan as compared to western countries, is about 100 here, to 0 abroac. The infantile death rate of Japan is appalling, competent authorities declaring that onlv one child out of three survives to* its tmrd year in Japanese cities. ~ Among those taking part in the discussion of the surplus population is Count Micliimasa Sovejima, a leading Liberal, and ex-member of the House of Peers, who has just returned from a world tour. “Japan,” he says, “must, choose, and choose quickly, between birth control or emigration, somewhere.” He, himself', is an aident advocate of birth control, although he is the father of ten children. He foresees tremendous difficulties in even getting a hearing in Japan for birth control ideas. Like Home Best. Emigration is also faced with difficulties, Avhile the Japanese cling to their overcrowded homeland. “Perhaps, when living conditions here become harder, and intolerable, even, probably', to the starvation point,” declares the count, “Japanese will he willing to leave, and begin life anew in some new land, 'me Japanese are not a migrating peojile. Japan has owned Formosa for 3u years, yet the Japanese population of that almost adjacent island to-day is only some 150,000. We have controlled Korea for more than 20 years, yet in Korea to-day there are fewer than half a million Japanese. “Even if all restrictions to emigration to the United States were removed, 1 doubt, if the flow of Japanese settlers would exceed 10,000 a year. -A strong disinclination to leave Japan is characteristic of the people, while emigrants nearly always return when they have made their stake abroad. After Ten Years, AVhat?

“With Japan’s population increasing by more tmui half a mnuou a year, however, Japanese must become either highly industrialised, something again extremely difficult because of Japan s lack of all raw materials, or migrate — to some place. We could possibly find room for another live million Japanese in Korea, although the Korean population is also increasing rapidly, and could place between live and ten million in the Island of Hokkaido, where there is to be found unused wheat land and pasturage. But even with the.r; available places filled to the saturation point, Ave can place only the surplus of the next decade, and then, what? “Premier Kato has stated that only a little more than half the arable land in Japan is now being tilled. Speaking merely of lend as land, lie is probably right,' but to increase to any appreciable extent the rice acreage of Japan would involve such expense as to make it a practical impossibility. The bes.: soil, now under rice cultivation, muse be heavily fertilised at great expense. The poorer, now uncultivated soil, would require heavy expenditure in clearing and preparation, and then greater expenditure for fertilisers, the increased cost of cultivation having to be made up in the selling price. Birth Control Question.

“Rico to-day is around eight yen (at. present, 14/4) a bushel for the grower. A few weeks ago, it went to fourteen yen, and there tvere serious riots. 1' this staff of Japanese life had to oc sold at a price whicn would make profitable the using of the poorer acre ages referred to ov the Premier, there would he worse than riots, tlicic would be revolution. “Hardly a voice in favour of birth control is to bo hoard in .Japan. Stat-is-mon arc afraid of it, and the politicians playing upon the inherent prejudices of the people, would be certain to oppos* it clamorously. All the forces m Buddhism are arrayed against it. Ali the weight of Japanese custom; based upon the family system, and Japanese tradition, resting upon loyalty to the Imperial family, and the necessity of breeding sons as fighting men, would be against it.’’ Others have stated that, any leader who would openly advocate nationwide birth control would invite an early death from an assassin’s knife, such advocacy being regarded as traitorous bv the reactionary elements.

“But,’’ Count Soyejima summed up, ‘ < there must be birth control in order that there may be room within the Empire for the people, or there must be emigration. And where is that emigration peacefully, to be directed? It, would be nice, of course, if we could have a portion of Siberia; out that is nat possible. Our enforced choice must be to limit our population, leave the Empire, starve, or fight.’’

Japan’s population at the end of 1922 was 59,400,252, a little over 6,000,000 more than in 1913.